Yeah, it’s tricky finding something worse in this world than Boko Haram and ISIS really.
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https://x.com/JimFergusonUK/status/1989834278213910753
Mexico in serious civil disorder.
This is the opinion of War School teacher, Asmund Osflaten, and differs from widely held (and discussed) threat assessments in London and Washington.
It’s worth a deep-read.
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I would like to say that Russia’s thirst for conflict will be satiated after some sort of treaty is signed (soon?)… but really, all bets are off. I wonder if he’ll shop back east, at one of the former satellite states? Or indeed something completely different, say a country in Africa…
I would still say the greatest medium/long term threat to the integrity of the Russian state is China.
Maybe. Yes, dependence on China is the big strategic danger.
I think the Long Term threat to Russia is principally Russia itself. But that is my view.
I think after Ukraine, there will be a necessary economic pause, before they tighten the screws on Khazakstan and other central Asian Soviet states. Maybe they can do this without invasion, but they will invade if they think that is better.
In latter years, states such as Khazakstan have been too independent and it will be an ideal time to reintegrate them since these states are located geographically in an area where the West cannot help them. But perhaps this isn’t necessary.
There will be adventures in Africa of course, but that is more colonialism so doesn’t matter, as it won’t stretch the resources of the Russian state to support Burkina Faso or any other dictator with their Afrika Korps. They mostly use Wagner for this. It’s just money and colonialism and not subjugation and conquest.
But they will continue to push against NATO. Their main strategic goal, at all cost, is the desctruction of NATO, which they will aim to do by sowing instability and supporting the likes of Trump and Orban. Then eventually, they will launch a small invasion to test article 5. On an area where they think the West will not be able to invoke Article 5 for. This can be from everything from Svalbard, Gotland to , if they roll the dice, a Baltic state.
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It is not the dependence on China but more the hawks in China that will view parts of the Far East of Russia in the context of historical China and or “natural” expansion…
They won’t invade each other in the medium term and before that happens, there will be war with the West anyway, which will change the geopolitical picture substantially, depending on outcome. Confrontation with NATO is much, much closer than confrontation between Russia and China and will highly likely happen within 20 years at the most (probably much less). If Russia had been stopped in Ukraine, none of this had been likely but they haven’t been, but boosted instead as the West has unraveled.
My view anyway.
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And this is with 150K still missing
https://x.com/Schizointel/status/1997018455858438642
It still makes me ill how little people cared about this event.
This was mechanical killing. Not by air force or artillery, but mostly by small arms. This was grueling physical work. To kill so many that is. The obscenity in the act is above and beyond.
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